How the Indians remain a contender

AP Photo/Mark DuncanJustin Masterson, a free agent after the 2014 season, is open to a long-term deal with Cleveland.

When the Indians clinched a playoff spot on the final Sunday of the regular season, Terry Francona walked through the two sheets of plastic that separated a hallway of sanity from Cleveland’s champagne celebration.

A few minutes later, Francona stepped back through that door, completely soaked, his hatless head glistening, and tried to wipe his eyes with both hands. “I can’t see anything,” he said, haltingly walking back to the visiting manager’s office in search of a towel.

Getting to the postseason was a fantastic achievement for Francona and the Cleveland Indians, and now the challenge for them is the same as it is for every team with a modest payroll -- like Oakland, like Tampa Bay -- i.e., contending consistently.

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

Buster Olney

Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of two books. "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," is a Times best-seller, and "How Lucky You Can Be", about basketball coaching legend Don Meyer, was released in 2011.

He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).